The Raiders and Las Vegas announced months ago that the deal to move the Raiders to my hometown of Las Vegas has been finalized. I didn't write about it at the time because there was still a lot of unknowns. As you all may know, I was not initially receptive to the stadium financing plan. The city of Las Vegas went all in and basically gave the Raiders almost everything they asked for. Las Vegas would raise room taxes on tourists in order to pay for the largest portion of the stadium's construction budget. The Raiders looked like they'd be given numerous tax breaks (including tax-free bonds and property tax exemptions). It looked like the Raiders would even get out of having to pay rent for the stadium (which is supposed to be owned by the Las Vegas Stadium Authority, rather than by the Raiders themselves).

Being a UNLV alumni and a UNLV football season ticket-holder, a lot of my early frustrations were with the Raiders' (and the city's) insulting treatment of UNLV's football team. UNLV had been unsuccessfully lobbying for years with the city of Las Vegas to get funding for a new stadium. That UNLV stadium came close to happening. It was hoped that having a shiny new stadium on or near campus would increase attendance, allow UNLV to recruit higher-caliber ball-players, and maybe even potentially attract an NFL team (like the Raiders, Rams, or Chargers) to relocate to Las Vegas. Those plans fell apart, as the city simply couldn't afford such a project, and the Rebels didn't help matters by continuing to disappoint with two-win seasons. Then the Raiders come along, and not only does the city give them virtually everything they ask for, but the Raiders also tried to screw UNLV out of even being able to realistically use the stadium that was being mostly paid for by public funds.

UNLV had been unsuccessfully lobbying for a new stadium [LEFT] for years,
then the Raiders [RIGHT] show up and the city bends over backwards to accommodate them.

The Raiders initially wanted UNLV to pay a $250,000 stadium rental fee per game! This is despite the fact that the largest chunk of funding was supposed to come from public money generated by Las Vegas taxes, and that the stadium was to be technically owned by the LV Stadium Authority. If this were a public stadium (as proponents often insisted it would be), then the local public university shouldn't be paying a private corporation for use of the property. In addition to wanting money from UNLV, the Raiders also didn't want to allow UNLV to paint the turf or have any permanent UNLV branding in the stadium. Essentially, the Raiders didn't want to share this stadium that was being paid for with public funds.

A final concern was with parking and traffic infrastructure. Las Vegas' highways are already over-taxed (and perpetually being torn apart and expanded), and the stadium was supposed to be built in an area of town that already suffers from a lot of congestion. ...

Oh boy, booting up Madden 18 for the first time was like watching a slow motion train wreck -- before the train had even left the station. After a few start-up questions to set my play style and difficulty level, the game immediately loaded into a demo game of a Superbowl rematch between the Falcons and Patriots. Except it crashed to the PS4 menu before the game could load. I booted it up again, sat through setting my initial preferences again, and then waited in anticipation to see whether the demo game would actually load.

It did, but instead of a tightly-choreographed narrative tutorial like in Madden 16 and 17, it loaded into a normal Play Now game, but with pathetically sparse commentary and lazy SuperBowl presentation. Now, Madden 17's tutorial wasn't great. The player banter was cheesily-written and poorly-acted, and completely misrepresented the actual content of the game. But at least it had scripted scenarios that put the player in position to try out some of the new features. Madden 18's introduction couldn't even be bothered with trying to be a tutorial. It just throws you into a game with a few tooltips popping up in the corner of the screen that you may or may not have time to read, and which may or may not be actually relevant or useful.

The demo game exposed the persistence of legacy issues with loose ball and onside kick recovery.

The actual game exposed several legacy issues were still present. Loose-ball physics and fumble recoveries appear to still be an ongoing problem. A fumbled ball just magically sticks to a recovering player's hand, and an onside kick was sucked right into the waiting hands of a member of the receiving team. So much for my hopes that the Frostbite Engine might be a panacea for fixing any legacy physics issues...

The game ended, I was given a "What's New" teaser video that explained the settings and options that I had already chosen before, and then I was put on the main menu where every piece of content was locked out. The only thing that I was allowed to do is replay that same Falcons-Patriots Superbowl rematch. You see, this year's Madden game pulls that annoying trick where it installs just enough content to allow you to boot up the game and play a tiny piece of demo content while the rest of the content downloads and installs in the background. I hate this feature! I don't want to play an incomplete game. I'll play it when it's fully installed and ready to go. In the meantime, I can read a magazine or play something else. Don't tell me the game is "ready to play", when it isn't!

What I got was a buggy, poorly-performing game scenario that I didn't want to play, and which did nothing but showcase that major legacy issues still remain, that the commentary might be sparse and lifeless (fortunately it isn't), and it couldn't even be bothered to actually teach me any of the game's new features.

"Ready to play", my ass... At least install the Skill Trainer so I can do some tutorials!

I'm still working on my full review of Madden 18. It was starting to get kind of long and rambly, so I decided to break off the section regarding the Longshot story mode (which I've already played to completion) into its own post so that I could be a little more thorough regarding this unique game mode. Well, unique for Madden anyway. Games like 2K's NBA 2k have been doing a similar thing for years.

Longshot is a pretty radically different gameplay mode compared to the rest of Madden, and so it also felt kind of out-of-place in the review for the rest of the game. It's very much its own self-contained thing. In fact, it very easily could have been released as a stand-alone game or "expansion" DLC pack for Madden 18, rather than being a back-of-the-box feature. It's inclusion in the core package is probably one of the reasons that franchise mode received so little attention this year, as I'm sure this thing must have taken a lot of time and resources. Madden is already overpriced as it is (in my opinion) -- especially when you consider how much money EA makes from the Ultimate Team feature -- so I'm certainly happy that I got to play this mode without having to spend any extra money.

This isn't a character-creator like in earlier iterations of Madden's Superstar mode, or NCAA Football's Road to Glory / Race for the Heisman / Campus Legend. Instead, you take on the persona of a character designed by EA, named Devin Wade. Devin is a former college football star who quit after the death of his father and is eventually recruited into a fictional reality television show called "Longshot", in which he's trained to become a potential NFL draftee. Wade is dealing with the trauma of his father's untimely death a few years ago, as well as his own feelings of inadequacy, abandonment, and maybe some guilt. You play through his training process, as well as flashback bits of his high school career (and watch other bits of his college career and some pee wee moments). Surprisingly, one thing that you won't do is have Devin suit up in an NFL uniform, as the mode concludes with him being drafted (or not, as the case may be).

Longshot includes flashbacks of Devin Wade's high school and college careers.

The mode is mostly like watching a movie (a three-and-a-half hour long movie), with the occasional quicktime event, mini-game, or time-sensitive Mass Effect-style dialogue choice...

The Bears' QB is going to be Trubisky's job sooner or later. But when?

With an 0 and 2 start, people are already talking about benching Mike Glennon in favor of number 2 overall pick Mitch Trubisky. The writer at ESPN dismisses concerns about sparing Trubisky's health and psyche. "You can't seal him up with bubble wrap", says Jeff Dickerson. Apparently, coach John Fox disagrees.

I wasn't a fan of signing Glennon, and drafting Trubisky just confused me. But since the Bears drafted him as the obvious QB of the future, I want to see Trubisky play. More importantly, though, I want him to succeed.

If Trubisky is the starting quarterback in week 3's matchup against the Steelers, he'll be taking over a team that doesn't seem to have any weapons for him to work with. The receiving corps is depleted by injuries, with both Cameron Meredith and Kevin White being done for the season. Pro bowl guard Kyle Long is also still uncertain to be ready for the Steelers game. Missing Kyle Long might also be part of the reason that even Jordan Howard has been unproductive the first two weeks...

I was a little late at seeing the Bears' first 2017 preseason game. I had meant to record it Thursday evening and watch it later that night. Instead, my DVR recorded two hours of A Football Life instead of the game. I don't know if this was NFL Network's fault for airing the wrong show, or if it was Century Link's fault for mislabeling the schedule. In any case, I had to wait to record the re-broadcast later Saturday morning and watch it Saturday night.

I've been pretty vocal about my confusion with the Bear's offseason quarterback decisions. While I wasn't sorry to see Jay Cutler kicked to the curb, I was very unsure about signing Mike Glennon. I was even more dumbfounded by the Bears' decision to trade up to draft Trubisky after having already spent all that money on Glennon.

Glennon didn't give fans reason to be optimistic, as his preseason debut went about as bad as it could possibly go. His second pass of the game was intercepted by Chris Harris Jr. and returned for a touchdown.

Mike Glennon's second pass was intercepted by Chris Harris Jr. and returned for a TD.

In Glennon's defense, the offensive line wasn't doing him many favors. He seemed to be getting hit every time he dropped back. While Chris Harris Jr. was high-stepping the pick into the end zone, Glennon was peeling himself off the turf. If the Bears want Glennon (or any quarterback they decide to field) to be successful, then they're going to need to beef up their protection.

Cody Whitehair, in particular made a key mistake by snapping the ball over Glennon's head during the Bears' second possession. The ball was recovered by the Broncos, but the Bears' defense managed to hold them from scoring.

Cody Whitehair snapped the ball
over Glennon's head.

The Bears' third drive was where they were finally able to move the ball for the first time in the evening thanks mostly to their running game. Jordan Howard only got a few runs, but rookie Tarik Cohen made some pretty good runs that may earn him some extra play-time and maybe a spot on the final roster. Down 10-0, Glennon ended his night in the early second quarter with only two completions on eight attempts, with the pick-six and a quarterback rating of 0.0 -- yes, that's zero point zero!

Mark Sanchez didn't see much playing time, but I think the coaches probably have a pretty good idea of what Sanchez brings to the team...

A gamer's thoughts

Welcome to Mega Bears Fan's blog, and thanks for visiting! This blog is mostly dedicated to game reviews, strategies, and analysis of my favorite games. I also talk about my other interests, like football, science and technology, movies, and so on. Feel free to read more about the blog.

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I've been saying for years that Star Trek would make a good anthology series04/14/2016Earlier this year, it was announced that CBS will be creating a new Star Trek television series to celebrate the franchise's 50-year anniversary. Very little was known about the series except that it would be under the leadership of Bryan Fuller (a former Deep Space Nine staff writer), and that it would premiere on CBS's All-Access...